There is also a logistical and financial aspect to having the

jury system. This would mean reconfiguring existing

courtrooms, jurors need to be sequestered somewhere
secure. They have to be billeted, fed and cared for. All these
will cost a lot of money, something our country may have
not enough.

Furthermore, the jury system is not perfect. It can also be

prone to corruption. The movie Runaway Jury, based on
John Grishams novel, gives one glimpse on the ugly side of
the jury system. Keep in mind Grisgham is practicing
lawyer and knows a thing or two about these irregularities
that are not often publicized. There are known cases where
jurors acquitted police officers who killed unarmed
individuals. They show the jury system does not gurantee
fairness if the wrong people are chosen and they are already
corrupted.

Only two assessors would have done, as in the Pistorius

case. A jury is usually composed of 12 good men and true. I
don't know if any courtroom today in the Philippines has
space for a jury. Manila courts are shameful and disgraceful.
No decent courtroom. Makati is better Paraaque, more so
but the courtrooms may be too small for a 12-man jury.
It will cost billions to reconfigure courtrooms. The money
can be used instead for other purposes, like improving
further the working condition of judges to attract and keep
the best and the brightest among idealistic young graduates.
The system worked in my youth. Among the many CFI
Judges in Manila, there was tsismis (gossip) only as to one.
RUNAWAY JURY- John Grisham
Plot summary[edit]
Every jury has a leader, and the verdict belongs to him.
Wendall Rohr and a legal team of successful tort lawyers
have filed suit on behalf of plaintiff Celeste Wood, whose
husband died of lung cancer. The trial is to be held
in Biloxi, Mississippi, a state thought to have
favorable tort laws and sympathetic juries. The defendant is
Pynex, a tobacco company.
Even before the jury has been sworn in, a stealth juror,
Nicholas Easter, has begun to quietly connive behind the
scenes, in concert with a mysterious woman known only as
Marlee.
Rankin Fitch, a shady "consultant" who has directed eight
successful trials for the tobacco industry, has placed
a camera in the courtroom in order to observe the
proceedings in his office nearby. He has begun to plot many
schemes to reach to the jury. He planned to get to Millie
Dupree through blackmailing her husband through a tape
that has him trying to bribe an official. He reaches to Lonnie
Shaver through convincing a company to buy his employer
and convince him through orientation. He also tries to reach

Rikki Coleman through a blackmail of revealing

her abortion to her husband. As the case continues, Fitch is
approached by Marlee with a proposal to "buy" the verdict.
Quite early on, it becomes obvious what Nicholas Easter
and his lover/partner Marlee are doing: he is working from
the inside to gain control of jury - being warm-hearted,
sympathetic and very helpful to jurors who might be won
over, and rather ruthless to those who prove impervious to
his efforts. Eventually, Easter becomes jury foreman after
the previous one falls ill (resulting from Nicholas spiking his
coffee). Easter also manages to completely hoodwink and
repeatedly manipulate the Presiding Judge - despite his
being a veteran judge who is well aware of the vast
monetary interests involved, and who (correctly) suspects
both sides of resorting to underhand methods. Meanwhile,
Marlee acts as Easter's agent on the outside, increasingly
convincing Fitch that, indeed, Easter is in control of the jury
and in a position to deliver any verdict on demand.
Marlee gives the highly experienced and cynical Fitch the
impression that the pair's object in doing all this is purely
mercenary - to sell the verdict to highest bidder. Still, Fitch
makes a great effort to discover Marlee's true name and
antecedents. This turns out to be extremely difficult, and the
detectives employed by Fitch express their grudging respect
for her skill in hiding her tracks.
With the court proceedings reaching their climax, Fitch still in the dark about Marlee's past - agrees to her proposal
to pay $10 million for a favorable verdict. Only after the
money was irrevocably transferred to an offshore banking
account do the detectives discover the shattering truth:
Marlee's parents have both died due to smoking; far from a
cynical mercenary, she is in fact a zealous anti-smoking
crusader. Thus, Fitch knows that he lost his principals' $10
million in addition to having lost the trial.
Inside the closed jury room, Easter convinces the jury to
find for the plaintiff and make a large monetary award $2
million for compensatory damages, and $400 million for
punitive measures. While not able to sway the entire
jury,Easter gets nine out of twelve jurors to back him which is enough, three quarters of the jury being sufficient
for a valid verdict in a civil case. The defense lawyers and
their employers are devastated.
Meanwhile, at the Cayman Islands, Marlee makes use of her
certain knowledge that tobacco companies' stocks are going
to take a sharp plunge in order to short-sell them, making an
enormous gain on the original $10 million - and Easter,
having achieved the goal of the prolonged campaign,
quickly disappears from Biloxi and gets altogether out of the
US. While Easter and Marlee are now rich and satisfied that
they served justice, Fitch realizes that his reputation has
been destroyed and that the tobacco companies, once
undefeatable, are now vulnerable to lawsuits.
The book closes with Marlee returning the initial $10
million bribe to Fitch, having used it to make several times
that much, and warning Fitch that she and Nicholas will
always be watching. She explains that she had no intention
to steal or lie, and that she cheated only because "That was
all your client understood."